2018 US Open course breakdown: Looking at Shinnecock Hills from a fantasy perspective

Most weeks on the PGA Tour, the players know the course. They've seen it before, and, for the better players, there's a reason they keep coming back to play in the event -- money, course familiarity or a hometown event. But at the three majors after the Masters, the host venue moves around each year, often to a place the players haven't seen in a decade or longer. In those intervening years, the course changes, and the field hardly resembles the one the last time the venue held a major.

That's the case with Shinnecock Hills. It last hosted the US Open in 2004, back when Retief Goosen needed just 11 putts on the back nine to hold off Phil Mickelson, who self-destructed in the final three holes. And that whole problem with watering the seventh green between groups. But we digress.

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About the author

Ryan Ballengee

Ryan Ballengee is founder and editor of Golf News Net. He has been writing and broadcasting about golf for over a decade, working for NBC Sports, Golf Channel, Yahoo Sports and SB Nation. Ballengee lives in the Washington, D.C. area with his family. He used to be a good golfer.